The Ionia County Intermediate School District (ISD) and the Montcalm Area ISD recently received more than $20,000 worth of free office furniture and supplies from State Farm Insurance Company.

Donated materials will be used primarily to furnish the now-empty HO Steele Education Center in the Montcalm ISD, which will be the site of two new programs: the summer Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) leadership programs, and the I'M Kids Food Basket, a new feeding program serving both Ionia and Montcalm counties starting this fall.

The donation could not have come at a better time, said Deborah Wagner, director of grants and special projects in the general education department of the Ionia County and Montcalm Area ISDs. Wagner facilitates both counties' youth advisory councils and is the program director for the AmeriCorps VISTA program.

"These are brand new programs and the building is empty, so the furniture was this wonderful gift to us because the building has little to nothing in it," Wagner said. "Our summer STEM program needed desks, chairs and file cabinets; and our feeding program needed prep tables and a refrigerator. This was perfect timing."

State Farm recently relocated their Wyoming, Mich., headquarters, and invited the nonprofit organizations they support to take the office furniture and supplies left behind. State Farm has funded the Ionia County Youth Advisory Council's teen driver safety programs since 2008.

The closed State Farm facility had two floors of furniture and other supplies in it, Wagner said. Initially, she took a truck and trailer, and then returned Thursday with a rental truck with a lift gate. They brought back chairs, tables, cabinets, bookshelves, trash cans, recycling containers and more.

"Twenty thousand dollars might be underestimating what we got," Wagner said, adding that the chairs alone had a value of $7,500. "It was very nice to be able to get that."

The HO Steele building, which is in a central location between Ionia and Montcalm counties and sits on 58 acres, is "perfect for what we want to do," said Wagner. "When we approached Montcalm (Area ISD), Dr. K (Dr. Scott Koenigsknecht, superintendent) really wanted the building used."

The STEM program, which includes partnerships with local libraries, Grand Valley State University and Central Michigan University, will target sixth graders.

"A lot of the new common core standards are in engineering. We plan to bring in experts and do problem-based learning by looking at real local problems," Wagner said. "For example, windmills for electricity: we could maybe research the environmental impact or study how they are constructed, and then we could take research and send it or present it to the county commission or whoever is looking at that in the county and share the information."

A kick-off event for the STEM program is scheduled for May 14 at the HO Steele building.

Page 2 of 2 - The I'M Kids Food Basket program, which will launch in the fall, will select one school in Ionia County and one in Montcalm County from among schools with the highest free and reduced lunch rates. Children will take home a sack supper.

Wagner said 10,000 people in Ionia County are food-insecure, and 3,400 of those are children. In Montcalm County, the numbers are even higher: 11,000 people are food-insecure, and 4,300 to 4,700 of those are children.

"They may go days without a meal," said Wagner. "This is a way to bridge that gap, to make sure kids come to school well-fed so their brains work, and that they are physically and mentally healthy."

"We've been partners with State Farm for quite a few years, and it's been a very good relationship with them," said Ionia County ISD Superintendent Robert Kjolhede. "This is just another example of them supporting our county, and we're excited to be a part of it."